DEFENSE COMMUNITIES 360

Microgrid Technology Will Help DOD Meet Many of its Energy Goals

The Pentagon is working with companies such General Electric and Lockheed Martin to assess microgrid and smart grid technology, an effort that aims to address the department’s three-part energy strategy — reducing demand for traditional energy, increasing the military’s reliance on renewable energy sources and improving the energy security of installations.

“Microgrid is a triple play,” Dorothy Robyn, deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, told attendees at the 2011 Washington Energy Summit last week.

DOD’s use of microgrid technology — self-contained islands of energy generation and management capacity — should accelerate the pace at which the private sector commercializes the technology. DOD is “uniquely positioned to help get some of those technologies commercialized so that we can go on and buy them as another commercial customer and use them in our buildings,” Robyn said.